Born Like This
by LarcSakurai
Summary: Persona 3, Strega centered-- The beginnign of their nightmare, the story of the awakening, the beginning of their end. We are born like this.
1. Chapter 1

Fandom:: Persona 3

Pair:: Takaya/Jin

Summary:: The beginning of their nightmare, how the story of their lives came to be

_The time is right to change this_

_To make the life we know_

_They took what we wre given_

_We'll get it back again_

It was a place I'd seen so many times before. Pristine white and chill. Sterile. Disgusting. Absolutely nauseating. Stench of blood and death seeped from every corner of the room. I didn't dare open my eyes. The screaming had finally stopped. The only thing I can hear is my own breath. Do I dare look around...?

Opening my eyes reveals the darkest, most horrible terror I could heve ever imagined.

Ninety-nine dead bodies. Strapped to table and long forgotten, left in various states of mangled decay. Tears filled my eyes and I tried to scream but nothing came out. It was too manaical, too wretched, too heinous to describe. Ninety-nine homeless children sacrificed in the name of science.

...No wait!

In the corner!

Movement and a moan. A little girl with long red hair was shifting. Bound tightly she was, large gashes in her wrists coated in dried blood. She looked exhausted and was so badly torn up it was almost impossible to tell if she lived. I can't imagine I looked much better but was too scared to even try and glimpse at what might be left of my own body. She began to look around as well, curious of her new environment. Hands thrashed against the powerful clasps holding them down trying to cover her mouth to muffle the terrible screech that tore form her tiny body. She squirmed and kicked and made a terrible display of unbridled fear. My throat was so tight I could barely speak loud enough to be heard over the girl's screams.

"Y-You're.. alive?"

Instantly she silenced and turned to face me, pale face inset with wide blue eyes. She was very pretty past all the blood and wounds. She didn't move nor speak, watching like a deer in headlights. Slowly she managed to give a nod, testing out her own weak vocal cords.

"Y-Yes... Yes I.. I am.." her voice was soft and sweet. Like a little doll.

Okay, so there were only ninety-eight dead bodies.

We didn't speak for awhile. Just those few words drained any energy I may have had. My head hurt so bad, I coudn't think to say anything else. Haze fogged up my brain, dull pain pulsating in some black region far out of reach. A voice whispered in the shadows, steadily growing louder but remained unintelligible. I called out to it but it stopped and the strange girl across the room turned to face me.

"Think we're the only ones alive...?"

"I don't know..." I glanced around but there was no other movement.

"What's your name?"

I stopped to think. What was my name? "Umm.. J-Jin."

"Jin..." she nodded. "Chidori...."

_Thou art I..._

"What... Chidori, did you say something?" It sure didn't sound like her...

"No..." She looked around, trying to sit up to get a better view of the carnage. "Did you hear something...?"

_And I am thou...._

It wasn't a tangible voice.. it was in my head. Heat burned in my veins and I moaned in pain. It hurt, this heat. Burning... hotter and hotter... My throat ran dry and I couldn't see. Everything fogged up and got real fuzzy. What's going on... What's happening to me!? I kicked and squirmed against strong hands pushing my body to the table. No one was here, what the fuck was doing this!?

Chidori screamed across the room but I don't know what she was saying. The pain intensified sending electric ripples tearing across my veins. I screamed. Nothing. No sound, no voice, not even a pitiful gasp. Sharp pain tore through my brain and heart, quickening the beats until it near burst forth from my chest. Oh god.. the pain.. unfathomable pain...

_You belong to me...._

"CHIDORI!?" Blood swam in my eyes, red and hazy. Electricity tore through me, over and over ripping my veins apart, shocking the very cells that made me. Something appeared before me. Huge and gleaming, a giant hunk of metal looming closer. Stubborn chains held fast, allowing no escape. What was that thing!? It.. it's gonna kill me... I'm gonna die..

Bloodcurling screams broke all over the labs. Sounds of chains snapping and bodies slamming into walls and tables. Thumps of the dead left forgotten, cracks and squishy sounds as they were tred upon. Someone, or something was coming. I tried to pull away, shaking and screaming and pleading for mercy. No.. No leave me alone.. Leave me alone!

Thin fingers pushed my mouth open and forced something down, chalky and metallic. Medicine of some sort. The sharp nails worked my throat until I finally swallowed the intruding pills, all the pain suddenly disappearing without a trace it had ever been. I collapsed back to the metal table to catch breath, looking upon my savior.

Lines of pain and worry worked his face, he looked nearly a decade older than he already was. His body was thin and pathetic as well, tortured by whatever curse had been thrust upon us. Torn, ratty old blue jeans barely clung to his bony hip and he was shirtless, tangled white hair held back from his face by a simple band around his head. He looked like a makeshift depiction of Jesus Christ. He could have been for all I cared, he certainly saved me.

"Your beast has awakened." Raspy, cold words crept out of him. He pried my wrists out of the chains and pulled me off the table to stand on wobbly legs. I could barely see him up close. My eyes never were very good.

"B-Beast?"

"Yes..." the strange boy heaved me up into his arms. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"W-Wait..." I pointed towards where Chidori lay collapsed, obviously having experienced what I just had. "W-What about her?"

The stranger walked over to her and heaved the comatose girl over his other shoulder. He supported me on his side and together we slowly made out way out of the abandoned labs. I fought the urge to sleep, rising out of the chamber into the cool night air. I almost fell but he stubbornly held on, dragging me along if my feet refused to move. I was too tired to care how he mistreated me, I wanted away just as badly as they did.

"W-What's your name...?" I managed to whisper.

"Takaya." he glanced around the alleys. We were somewhere around Gekkoukan High School... I think that's what it was.. It was hard to see. Takaya's hand went rigid on my arm but he persevered, dragging my near lifeless body through puddles of something warm and sticky.

Finally, I could keep myself awake no longer and I closed my eyes to sleep. Completely entrusting myself into the hands of Takaya and the sweet delusion of escape.

_It's not what I gave to you_

_It's not what I stole_

_We are born like this_


	2. Chapter 2

Fandom:: Persona 3

Pair:: Takaya/Jin

It was daylight by the time I finally woke. Takaya was sitting next to me, Chidori on his other side. The man's eyes were closed in thought, sunlight did very little to make him seem more alive. Actually he seemed even weaker in the lively shine. I glanced around the new environment, heavy machinery shrouded in dusty shadows. A factory. I willed myself upright snapping Takaya from his daydream. He scrutinized my battered body and frowned. I must have looked horrible by the expression on his face. Rising he stole into the darkness leaving me alone with the still sleeping Chidori.

The voices I'd heard the night before were silent. Disconcerting. Though it did not speak it was there, waiting, watching me. Haunting the back of my mind waiting for the perfect oppurtunity to strike. It was there... Always there... Why...? It wasn't always there... so why was it there now? Better yet.. what the hell is it?

Takaya came back in carrying a water basin. He knelt and dipped a cloth in the water, sponging my face gently. I winced but he continued, turning the water rosy pink with each dip back into the basin. It was hard to believe myself more frail than the skeleton tending to my wounds. Malnourishment, stress. His body spoke of horrendous torment.

"T-Takaya...?"

"Yes, Jin?"

"What.. happened to us...?" I recalled the beast that stood before me. Fuzzy as it was I remember with vivid detail the fear that monster struck into my heart. Some.. machine... I can only assume it was what spoke to me. Takaya shook his head and pulled off what remained of my shirt. He didn't speak while he worked, apparently he didn't know either.

"I'm.. not sure myself." he confirmed my suspicions. "I woke up, same as you, completely oblivious to everything around me. I was too tired to venture.. but when that thing came out of you something awoke within me as well. I remember the scientists talking about these," at this he picked up a bottle, "and that they were supposed to control whatever it was they did to us."

I nodded slowly, letting it all sink in. At the mention of the mysterious medication the force inside me squirmed. Apparently it wasn't too pleased about this but that was good to know. I could contain this thing. That was assurance enough. There were still so many questions to be answered...

"Last night..."

"We were lucky. We almost didn't make it."

I blinked. "Whaddaya mean?"

"It was just before midnight we made it outside Gekkoukan. Any later and we would have been killed in seconds." Takaya's voice was grim. That.. thing.. that was the school last night.. wasn't it?

"I couldn't see very well..."

Takaya nodded. "I'll get you suitable glasses, can't have you wandering around half blind."

"T-Thank you..." I blushed. No one ever cared for my eyesight before. I was a 'defect' to my parents by the age of ten because I was functionally blind. Without glasses I couldn't see or operate like a normal person. The world around me is a mass of darkness and shapless forms. Takaya... he didn't seem to care. He brought me out of that world of torture and took care of me. Now he was telling me he would get me glasses and not judge me for them. Judge me for being defective.

If there truly was a Jesus Christ, it was the unholy depiction beside me.

"Jin...? Is that you?" Chidori sat up, regarding Takaya curiously. "Who is this?"

"Takaya Sakaki. I brought the two of you from the labs last night." he took the wash basin and handed it to Chidori. She carefully accepted it, eyes never leaving him. Not too friendly around men, it seemed. We were all she had so would just have to accept us.

Gently I willed myself upright stretching the knots out of tired muscle. Physically drained I was mentally rejuvenated, already calculations and schemes to survive were blurring through my head. Takaya noticed the busy look and he grinned in approval. It was from that moment I knew my place in this broken family. I was the brains of the operation.

"Once Chidori is cleaned up we'll wait for midnight." Takaya said.

"Why midnight?" Chidori questioned.

"The Dark Hour." he replied simply, "Don't you remember? That was the whole reason they tortured us."

The Dark Hour.

We stared at Takaya in fear of the memories. The lies and deceptions Kirirjo had fed us in order to get their guinea pigs. It was nothing but a scam, innocent homeless children turned into martyrs for scientific research. Humans playing God trespassing in territory where they should never tred. They weren't, of course, the ones who paid the price for their stupidity. We were. We paid the ultimate sacrifice for Kirijo to get whatever answers about the mysterious Dark Hour they sought.

"During the Dark Hour," Takaya continued, "Normal people are asleep in coffins to keep them blissfully ignorant. Think of it as suspended animation. All electronics no longer function."

I saw where he was going with this. "So we can break into stores and things during that time and there will be no security mechanisms to worry of?"

"Precisely." he was impressed. "We'll get the necessities tonight: clothes, food, and for Jin, a pair of glasses. We will do whatever we must to survive. They stole our lives and sanities right out from under our noses. Well.. now we're going to get them back."

It wasn't much to hope for.

But it was the only hope we had.

_The time has come to change this_

_To stretch the thought a mile_

_We lost the kind of spirit_

_We want it back today_

_--Three Days Grace, "Born Like This"_


	3. Chapter 3

Fandom:: Persona 3

Pair:: Takaya/Jin

Note: Slight/mild spoilers

Under cover of emerald moonshine we stole through the dark streets seeking out whatever we needed. Crowbars and stray bricks dealt away with windows, hammers broke doors and allowed free reign to ransack the city as we saw fit. No sirens, no alarms, nothing to halt our progress. We would survive. We would play the twisted hand fate had dealt by any means they had. Self-preserverance came above morality in a life like this.

Takaya kept me close entering different stores, shoveling backpacks full of food and other supplies. I stood blindly in a corner and waited for our leader, I didn't dare move about the bloody rooms. It was best to just let him guide me until I had the eyes to see again. Bony finegrs seized my wrist and tugged me through the dark halls to stop further inside the store. He ran my fingers over a rack of reading glasses, starting at the bottom and working up in strength. Pair after pair yielded slightly better results. My heart raced at the notion of clear sight. It was amazing to me how people took eyesight for granted.

Finally the platinum haired, pale-skinned body of our leader came into focus before me. I blinked a few times. This was no illusion. I could see! Honestly and truly see! The coffins and bloodflows that littered the streets would have terrified anyone else but I had never been happier to see them. I turned to a mirror, pleased to find they complimented my inner nerd.

"Can you see?" Takaya heaved the backpack on his shoulder.

"Yeah.. I can."

"Good," he motioned for me to follow, "the Hour grows late. We need to get back before they come for us."

"...They?" I followed our leader back into the main thoroughfare. He was silent while we walked, picking up Chidori in a clothing store nearby before heading back towards the industrial district.

"The Shadows... creatures that walk this Hour. We have our persona for protection but... well, we're not on the best terms with them." Takaya's voice was bitter.

"You certainly did your research." Chidori glanced up at him.

He shrugged. "I just listened. I'm not much better off than the two of you."

Takaya led us across the waterfront by Iwatodai station, pointing across the blood sea. My heart froze. There were no words to describe the tower that loomed from where Gekkoukan High stands in the daylight. Massive and ominous over the city dripping fountains of blood from balconies and windows. Twisted faces inset in nightmarish garbles of walls and staircases. There.. there was no description for it but utterly terrifying.

"W-What is that?!" Defying fear I moved closer to get a better look.

"The Tower of Demise." Takaya replied.

"What's it do?" Chidori seemed far less interested in the massive structure.

"Nest of darkness. Home to the harbinger of the end." He grinned. "Where it all will succumb to the Fall."

I looked back, "The Fall?"

"The end of civilization.." his eyes grew dilated, nearly maniacal. Chidori fled to my side, watching our ragged leader gaze in awe of the demonic tower.

"The world will end?" I whispered.

"Yes...." Takaya nodded. "As all things do. We.. we will end as well. Don't you feel it? Feel it in your bones, your blood. Your entire body slowly fading from your grasp. Writhing and withering with each passing second? That is our fate!"

Pain. When didn't I feel pain? Every waking moment I spent suffering with the ache of the persona eating me inside out. He was destroying me.. I could feel it in every inch of me. Fading.. dying... it was horrifying to consider. That I might know the day I die. Accursed foresight.

"We will find purpose to continue.." Takaya brushed my cheek. Skeletal his touch was, but yet... comforting. He understood our pain. We could trust him. I trusted him. I reached out to hold his arm and his hand curved around my cheek. His other hand joined the first and drew us so close our lips near brushed. A jolt lit my heart, a jolt of something I didn't understand. Raw power oozed from the piercing stare swallowing me in their depths. I owed everything to him. He took me from the darkness and held me here, on the sea wall above the swirling crash of blood waves, telling me I was going to die. He gave me the greatest gift all others, my own parents included, had denied me. I was hopeless and lost and he was a ray of hope. False hope, perhaps, but that was far better than nothing. It was inconceivable. It was fate.

I belonged to him.

Pulling away the jolt fled my chest but I was no longer lost. He took us by the hand and we blindly accepted the courses he took. It was the nature of our understanding. He led, we followed. He spoke, we listened. He guided, we would live. Without Takaya there was no life.

"Tomorrow morning we will find a means to support ourselves." The factory door swung shut with a thud as midnight blue returned to the skies. "I trust you two will do well."

I knew we three now had a purpose in life. A dark, morbid purpose. A purpose thrust upon us from which there was no escape but honestly we didn't care enough to question. As long as we served a meaning of any sort we were content.

We would see the world Fall together.


	4. Chapter 4

Fandom:: Persona 3

Pair:: Takaya/Jin

Notes:: Little spoilers and lime

Sunlight burned my eyes when I stepped out of the dirty old factory early the next morning. The city was already abound with life, a monotonous stream of hustling and bustling as commuters and students made their way along to their daily duties. I was nicely cleaned up after our excursion last midnight, blue pants and a green sweatshirt with arm warmers. I blended right in with their crowd, no one suspected I wasn't normal. That I wasn't like them. I looked geeky, but I also looked human. As long as one looks human, these busybodies will never note a difference.

I hadn't seen the sunshine in so long I near forgot what it looked like. Blue skies, cotton clouds drifting lazily across cerulean landscapes. Wrapping around the rising skyscrapers towering above ground. The beast, Moros he tells me his name is, stirs but remains calm. I took those pills this morning, a necessary precaution if I have to leave our sanctuary. The trick is accomplishing my mission for the day.

These people are simplistic in their nature, however sophisticated they may pawn themselves off to be. Fascinated by the gadgetry around them making their lives more fun and convenient. It's all very easy to break down and analyze. I pass by an electronics store, a gaggle of teenagers crowded about the front door chatting over cigarettes. Positioning myself on a bench nearby I listen to their conversation.

"Can you believe Hiroshi last night?!"

"Oh I know! He's such a two-timing bastard."

"Poor Keiko. If it were me I'd be so pissed. I'd pay to see that bastard get his just desserts."

"Oh too true!"

...Truly? I scoot closer to their conversation but the girls have already departed. Could the Dark Hour offer even more possibilities? Taking back to the streets I hop a tram across the bay over to the island where Gekkoukan High stands proud. Gleaming white walls, clean windows, a cold institutional atmosphere. It makes me sick to be near this place. The labs.. it looked so much, too much, like the labs.

Drawing closer I listen to the daily student chatter examining each passing thread. Tests, sexual prowess, chores and siblings. Nothing. I cannot give up so easily, however. Some girls pass by the gate and stop to stare at me, offering flirtacious little winks and grins. I simply look past them, more interested in their conversations then the short skirts.

Once they are gone the main stream of students approach and gold flows from their mouths.

"..pay to get him out of my life!"

"Wish she was dead!"

"...Hate that bitch!"

Hate. Anger. Rage.

Primitive human emotions instilled deep within our very being. Emotions that we could very well take into consideration. I hope the tram back across the water and head into town. Now that I had an idea it was time to formulate a plan of action. I return to the electronics store I had seen earlier, browing the wares for a good piece. Something that could serve our purposes. A means of contacting thousands of people in the blink of an eye from the safety of our old factory. It would take some rigging but it could be done.

A laptop. The perfect tool for my piece. I possessed great knowledge of the Internet and its workings, making a living as a hacker while in the labs. It was difficult work but I was able to modify many of their records, break into their databases and steal all the information I wanted. I realixed that I had a gift with computers, the analytical thinking required to perform such feats. It was time to put those skills to good use.

Now, I needed only to wait for midnight.

Jade tainted the sky and I rose from the makeshift bed I crafted from some old tarps. There was work to be done but Takaya was there waiting for me to rouse. He caught my wrist when I tried to leave, yanking me into his scrawny arms and pushing me back to the floor. He straddled my waist and I nearly sreamed, instant panic shooting through me.

Then those hands touched me again. Those sickly, powerful hands. His beasts's power coated the fingertips, sensual and slow against my warm throat. He was so cold but it felt wonderful. Golden eyes searched my own scrounging for any hint of my intentions. Mioist lips brushed my throat and a moan escaped me. Heat burned not just in my cheeks, it was everywhere. Takaya had a way with me I couldn't understand. His frailty was the perfect facade for the true power within our leader.

Hands snaked down lower urging hips upward. White fuzz settled around my brain, drifting it away from mission and purpose. I was caught in his web. Skillful fingers worked in quick time with his mouth and tongue, sweeping over virgin skin vibrating with loud, throaty moans.

"Jin... Just where do you think you're going...?" Stars exploded in my head knocking me delirious.

"O-Out.. t-to the.. ahh.. ngh.. elect-troonics store..." Intelligible words failed me. I saw no use for them, no use for anything but his body here against mine. He was in total control and he knew it. Reveled in it. I was his puppet. He was my master.

"Why?" his hands worked fabric bearing me to chilly night.

"Ah.. I.. was thinking of making a website... We would attract great business... spawned from the hate of people."

Takaya seemed to consider this. "I see... I am interested to see where you can take this." He took my hand and kissed it. "I trust you won't fail me."

I shook my head. "Never..."

He stole away my innocence that night. Whatever remained of it. He replaced it with something much greater, much more meaningful to me. Hope. Safety. Control. With Takaya there was life, there was survival. There were no laboratories, no scientists, no needles and experiments. No longer would we suffer. We would survive. Take it as it came, living each moment to its fullest. The only way to live when you know your'e about to die. With him, with Chidori, we had a broken family unit to call our own. I couldn't care less of what anyone else thought of us. Maybe we're demented. Maybe we're crazy. Or psychochotic. Or... maybe... just maybe....

Maybe we were just born like this.


End file.
